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Saturday, September 26, 2009

Pssst...

Although Deschutes is currently pouring two fresh hop beers, not to mention a nice spelt ale and a classic weisse, the best reason to stop in is the dry-hopped Mirror Pond on cask. Heaven. The aroma alone is worth five bucks.

Also, I finally laid eyes on the new .5 and .3 liter Rastal glassware Deschutes is lately using. Visually, the half-liter glass shares the classic, Irish-style tulip design of the old ones, but they are a bit smaller. I know there was some grumbling when they shifted down from imperial pints, but the new system boasts several virtues. The glassware includes an etched line marking .5 and .3 liters--the gold standard of transparency and honesty. As a nascent geezer, I don't mind these slightly smaller "pints." (Nowhere does Deschutes use that word, though a half liter is 16.9 ounces.) It means I don't have to start thinking of cutting myself off after just one pint.

Even nicer, the prices encourage use of the .3 liter, which goes for $2.75. That's roughly the same per-ounce cost as the half-liters, which cost $4.75. Although few patrons were ordering the little glasses, I happily divided my pints in half, multiplied my tipples by two, and walked out none the poorer. I was with the econ prof last night, and he calls this "linear pricing"--apparently not as good a deal for a pub as offering volume discounts. (It's cheaper to send waitstaff out half as often, less costly in terms of breakage and hard costs.) So this is a nice gesture to those of us who like variety.

But whatever glass you put it in, go get a pour of that dry-hop cask Mirror Pond. It's amazing.

3 comments:

A bit of clarification, though, on the glassware. The new "pints" are marked at the 500 ml point, while the total glass volume is actually 19.7 ounces, just slightly smaller than the 20 ounce glass we previously used. The mark ensures that 500 ml is delivered each time. Same goes for the 300 ml mark on the pilsner glass, and also for our new 300 ml tulip snifter.